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Post by theclv24 on Aug 3, 2015 10:24:47 GMT -5
Hello CC members!
I've been monitoring your tournament discussions at every level to get a feel for how the CC courses are being perceived. In the initial weeks of CC I favored easier courses just a bit, and the feedback that I received is that the courses were playing a little too easy. My next round of course selections got slightly more difficult, but the wind fix hit just as these courses starting coming into the rotation. The result is that I see the tournaments are playing harder than expected. Loa Pali, for instance, was supposed to be an easy course in the rotation but seems to have been moderately difficult due to hurricane winds.
With that in mind, I am still trying to find the right balance, with an easy course here, a difficult course there, and some moderate courses in between. The wind fix certainly has made things more difficult, as a lot of my testing and the testing done by rangers has not experienced the same wind levels that we seem to get during tournaments. I have a ton of courses in my list to be tested, but it is hard to know ahead of time how they play, and I spend a lot of time testing great, wonderful courses, but that aren't right for the CC tour. Here is where you can get involved.
To help me establish a more focused pool of courses to choose from, I would like CC members to submit courses they have played for consideration. If you choose to submit, here is what I am looking for:
3 courses total. One easy, one moderate, and one difficult. (Please no more than 3 courses, though. I can only test so many). Any theme of courses are acceptable, but to match up with tournament names, I am specifically looking at Boreal, Highlands, Harvest, and Delta for upcoming events. Other themes will obviously be considered if a course is too good to pass up. To make sure one group does not hold more sway over the submissions than others, please take the poll to indicate your flight level if you submit courses. To save me a bit of time, please consult the TGC Tours course page for your courses to ensure that they have not already been used for a tournament.
That's it. Your feedback in the thread is greatly appreciated, and I look forward to seeing the courses that CC enjoys playing!
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Post by ABU_Bear on Aug 3, 2015 10:43:16 GMT -5
Great Idea.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2015 11:59:22 GMT -5
Good idea. Had a mate join TGCTours in CC-D recently and I believe the CC courses in general have been too hard and more on the level of web.com at the very least (hoodoo hills/thousand islands/ha'auo minaku)
I haven't played many courses recently but I'm off work this week so I'll probably be able to play more and give you some feedback later this week.
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Post by TimB on Aug 3, 2015 12:15:18 GMT -5
CC -C here
As of late most my playing has been practice rounds for upcoming tournaments. One course i'm obsessed over is the HB official Pinehurst. On a quest to hit the green in 1, John says its not possible and curious what he would say if you do. With that in mind I searched for "Pinehurst" and came across yours a while ago and just had a quick 9 holes or so before I quit, just not feeling too great today to get into heavy golf.
So an easy course I would recommend is your Pinehurst #2 (blue tees?) Not sucking up lol, I just found the 1'st few holes to be a good fit for the CC's, wide fairways, medium greens, not a lot of slope. Not sure if that would cause a conflict for you here though.
Hard. I saw mention of Freshwater, newly created course and had a little go at that yesterday, again not feeling great so didn't finish, looks like a nice course, though the greens and speeds may be too much from what I saw.
Super extremely I'm going to kill myself hard vote goes to Magnolia National (Sunday) Never finished a round on PC, best I could do on PS4 was +5. I'm just kidding here, just thought I would throw it in the conversation since your the creator of that masterpiece. And as a mention to maybe some of the newer folks having a hard time with fast sloping greens (myself included) to practice on.
I've only been on PC since April, when I retired and bought myself a "retirement gaming computer" So don't have a lot of favorites saved or "my played" courses in my list. Will fire up my PS4 in the next day (dreading all the updates I will have to do, will take forever) or so and look at what I have saved in there, played many more rounds on PS4 from last August till April.
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Post by theclv24 on Aug 3, 2015 14:43:39 GMT -5
CC -C hereAs of late most my playing has been practice rounds for upcoming tournaments. One course i'm obsessed over is the HB official Pinehurst. On a quest to hit the green in 1, John says its not possible and curious what he would say if you do. With that in mind I searched for "Pinehurst" and came across yours a while ago and just had a quick 9 holes or so before I quit, just not feeling too great today to get into heavy golf. So an easy course I would recommend is your Pinehurst #2 (blue tees?) Not sucking up lol, I just found the 1'st few holes to be a good fit for the CC's, wide fairways, medium greens, not a lot of slope. Not sure if that would cause a conflict for you here though. Hard. I saw mention of Freshwater, newly created course and had a little go at that yesterday, again not feeling great so didn't finish, looks like a nice course, though the greens and speeds may be too much from what I saw. Super extremely I'm going to kill myself hard vote goes to Magnolia National (Sunday) Never finished a round on PC, best I could do on PS4 was +5. I'm just kidding here, just thought I would throw it in the conversation since your the creator of that masterpiece. And as a mention to maybe some of the newer folks having a hard time with fast sloping greens (myself included) to practice on. I've only been on PC since April, when I retired and bought myself a "retirement gaming computer" So don't have a lot of favorites saved or "my played" courses in my list. Will fire up my PS4 in the next day (dreading all the updates I will have to do, will take forever) or so and look at what I have saved in there, played many more rounds on PS4 from last August till April. Thanks for the kind words on my courses! I do enjoy playing Pinehurst a lot and I do think it would be a good fit for CC, but it has been used already on the Web.com tour. There are lots of great courses out there, so I am definitely going to avoid using the same course twice. As for Freshwater, it's definitely an awesome course. I found it to play at a medium-hard difficulty, and I play on the PGA so I think that says something about it's difficulty. I actually recommended it as a PGA or Euro course, so it would not surprise me to see it on one of those tours soon. I appreciate the feedback, and hope you feel better soon.
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Post by Mitchblue on Aug 3, 2015 14:53:38 GMT -5
I don't mind hard now and then but the problem is when we don't know the wind ahead of time the hard courses become impossible courses. I think I set a record for OB on the Hoodoo course. I couldn't control it..
I actually like the Loa Pali course. Its one of my favorites, in-fact the only course I rated a 10.
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Post by itzeddie on Aug 4, 2015 3:09:18 GMT -5
I have only been here a few tours and I seemed to of joined at the wrong time, I was put into CC-D and my first three tours were the ones everyone has been complaining about the last few rounds, its really demotivating when you come in as a new player and you go into the third lowest grouping and you expect to be able to get a hang of the game on average difficulty courses.
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Post by BIELSALUFC on Aug 4, 2015 3:41:20 GMT -5
I have mixed feelings on all this. I want a challenge and i think the wind fix as well as some members having problems with the swing mechanics resulted in problems.
I can't really complain as my scores have reduced week on week. If i had another chance to play the q school i would have been placed in a different group.
My first tournament at Victory i finished +58 at The Homestead +41 at Hobble Creek +4 at Hoodoo +19 and at Lao Pali + 13 Thousand Islands I finished +1 overall
I have really put some time into this game and i think thats the key.
After the coming tournament at Hau'oli we have Fraxinus and Le Golf National which if memory serves me correct are good choices of courses.
I think if the wind can be reduced to a maximum of 10/12 mph instead of the 18 mph difficult courses will become slightly more manageable. I really liked the different pins as well.
Its a difficult task to find the right balance. If we can get some involvement with choice of courses from longer serving members on here, that would help.
I will make notes and pass them on in due course but for me its all about the wind.
Thanks for your involvement (theclv24)
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Post by bogeyman on Aug 4, 2015 8:36:50 GMT -5
TheCLV24 - first I want to say that all you volunteers on TGCTours do a great job and yours in particular is a thankless task. You're never going to please all of the people all of the time. The biggest problem you face is the huge skill level difference between the highest and lowest tiers in the CC. I strongly believe that there should be different courses for the first three tiers and the last three tiers. I just played a practice round at Hau'oli Mino'aka in 12-13mph winds. I'm CC-E and still learning the game but we all know that to have a fighting chance it is imperative to be on the fairway. This is all but impossible in those winds on this course. Given that it's a tropical course, it's reasonable to assume that wind strength come tournament time will be similar to the round I just played. Lower tier CC players better put on their beach wear as they will spending a lot of time in the sand! Seriously though we should all heed your advice and give as much feedback as possible.
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Post by mnguy12000 on Aug 4, 2015 9:43:52 GMT -5
the last few courses have been pretty tough. with the winds up around 18, firm fast greens it makes it a very challenging go around. I think if we can get some courses that are a little smoother with the greens and not as punishing as this week it would be fine, heck this course would have been fine if the greens where a tad slower.
Too many putts for me that grazed the hole or lipped out and ended up further away then where I started.
so i think courses either have to be firm with med greens for med firm with fast greens. Greens should be challenging but not to the point where a slight miss leaves you a lot further away.
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Post by theclv24 on Aug 4, 2015 11:19:02 GMT -5
I will say this, although certainly not accusing anyone.
When I see a completed course on the TGC or HB forums, I generally will see some with overwhelmingly positive reviews, in regards to both the looks of the course and the way it plays. I then playtest the course to get a feel for how it plays and if it is right for the CC Tour.
If it passes my test and fits the schedule, I then pass it along to the Rangers to test. We have rangers on every platform, and from every tour, including CC-Z. If it passes there, it then gets added to the schedule.
The point is, the course must pass several tests for playability and enjoyability before it can reach the tour. But all of a sudden when it is used in tournament play, it's too difficult or not fun to play. Part of this is due to rounds with winds over 15mph, which aren't fun on any course. The amount of negative to positive course reviews during tournament play, though, never matches what I see outside of tournament play.
We obviously can't control the winds, and we will work on getting some wider courses that can handle strong winds better, but the course will always be the easy thing to blame for poor play. I think embracing the challenge is a necessary part of the process, otherwise no course will ever be good enough.
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Post by ABU_Bear on Aug 4, 2015 11:58:17 GMT -5
I will say this, although certainly not accusing anyone. When I see a completed course on the TGC or HB forums, I generally will see some with overwhelmingly positive reviews, in regards to both the looks of the course and the way it plays. I then playtest the course to get a feel for how it plays and if it is right for the CC Tour. If it passes my test and fits the schedule, I then pass it along to the Rangers to test. We have rangers on every platform, and from every tour, including CC-Z. If it passes there, it then gets added to the schedule. The point is, the course must pass several tests for playability and enjoyability before it can reach the tour. But all of a sudden when it is used in tournament play, it's too difficult or not fun to play. Part of this is due to rounds with winds over 15mph, which aren't fun on any course. The amount of negative to positive course reviews during tournament play, though, never matches what I see outside of tournament play. We obviously can't control the winds, and we will work on getting some wider courses that can handle strong winds better, but the course will always be the easy thing to blame for poor play. I think embracing the challenge is a necessary part of the process, otherwise no course will ever be good enough. 100% it lies on the person swinging the club. The reality is, like real golf, some are better at this game than others and always will be. I wouldn't expect to go out and play Glen Abbey in Oakville(which I've played twice in real life) and card a 72, but I'm also not going expecting to score well, I know what I am being presented with. I guess some of us(myself included) need to just change our mindset and not get frustrated if things don't go well. After all..a bad day on the golf course beats a good day at work any day of the week...even in video game world.
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Post by TimB on Aug 4, 2015 13:14:58 GMT -5
I'm probably talking to myself here (nothing new) but....to me the whole issue IS the wind. I mentioned a few months ago here that HB needs to tone down the frequency of the high winds...ignored. I've seen posts on the HB forums (dont post there myself) talking about the winds...crickets. You have the "this game is too easy" crowd wanting more difficulty, easy way to achieve that is crank up the wind. For the last several months now I've been greeted with 15+ mph winds 85% of the time. Some times I just want to load up a course, have a casual round (not tournament play) and practice my technique only to be greeted with 18 mph winds, back out try another course, same thing, over and over. It looses its fun factor. Don't get me wrong, I actually like playing in 10-13 mph winds, prefer it, anything above that the effect the wind has on the ball increases dramatically. I can only imagine someone who just bought this game, load their 1'st course up and get these winds, wonder how long they will continue to play it before they move on to something else. HB is shooting themselves in the foot in this area. Dont get me wrong I love this game and its the only one I play..ever.
Hows that relate to the tour? These courses wouldn't be so bad to play if the winds were manageable. Sure the greens are tough, but if you make a decent approach shot and get close to the pin you may get a birdie or par, but in 15+ winds having to make a 200 yard 2'nd shot on a par 4 getting close isnt going to happen. I dread next weeks course when we are greeted with the high winds again, its quite playable in lower winds, 15mph, good luck.
All of us here need to find a way to organize ourselves, each pick 5 courses from the main page course listings, play them and come back and report the ones we think would be a good fit for the tour, be a little more proactive in the course selection choices for the rangers, which is what this thread was started for, I've yet to see any recommendations though, just all of us nattering lol <---myself included
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Post by Timbr0_T on Aug 4, 2015 13:36:04 GMT -5
This is only my second week on TGC (CC-A), but I've played some of the other courses that were picked and overall I think the selections have been pretty good. Like you say, it's extremely hard to please everyone and obviously that can't be the goal.
A difficult course on it's own is never a bad thing. IMO what separates the good courses from the bad is what makes it difficult. I thought a course like Loa Pali was fantastic. I played horribly, but it was still fun, even in the high winds. I think it's the best course I've played in TGC. Why?
- Great variety of holes (I loved the mix of par 3.5 and par 4.5 par 4s). - Strategic risk/reward options that actually mattered. It's so easy to go on autopilot in a game like this because the decisions usually aren't that hard to make. You really had to think you way around Loa Pali. - Very fair greens. While there were some big slopes, they were slow enough to be playable. You could make up a couple shots on these greens.
How does a course handle repeated plays? I feel like a lot of borderline-unfair features can easily be overlooked on one play-through. The first time you play a new course, it's easy to blame a bad score on not knowing the course or where to hit it to score well. After playing the same tricked-up holes two or three more times, you realise that even good shots are punished (e.g.: crowned greens & fairways) or the strategic options intended by the designer have not been play-tested enough.
I think next week's course will be proof of this. The course is just too narrow, and there are too many hazards to really justify taking on any of the risky shots that have been designed, especially if it's windy. The penalty for hitting it in bunkers/rough is currently too severe. Arguably, this is game play problem and not related to the design but the course takes advantage of that as it's sole line of defence. This makes for a pretty boring round of 5W to the widest part of the fairway and long-iron into the green.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2015 13:52:44 GMT -5
Agree totally. Loa Pali is my favourite course so far. The fact that it is still fun play in high winds is a testament to how good it is. I think most designers don't design with winds in mind unfortuately. I'm on a web exemption this week and currently sweating on a card. I really don't want to drop down to play on Ha'aou Minaku. Far too narrow.
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